


set fire to my poems

by maryams



Series: i think you missed a period or two or maybe some common sense [2]
Category: Original Work, The 100 (TV)
Genre: Confessional Poetry, Poetry, Poetry About Concepts, Poetry About Stuff, Poetry Dump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-18
Updated: 2016-01-18
Packaged: 2018-05-14 19:27:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 2,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5755390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maryams/pseuds/maryams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>an anthology; 2015.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. i like the girl in the mirror not so much the girl herself

**Author's Note:**

> it gets bad before it gets better  
> AKA the first couple chapters are early works
> 
> I also own up to any problematic thinking and poems. They are there. I'm sorry. I'm a work in progress.
> 
> all poems and media are mine. all rights reserved. please ask before using.

i think it's important to  
first establish, before anything  
gets remotely serious  
i'm a serial monogamist  
except i like to kill half of the equation  
guess which half?  
(it's me)

. . . 

maybe i should elaborate  
before you get any crazy ideas  
i like to build myself up  
but honey, nothing ever really changes  
i'm the dust on the shelves  
except i'm way cuter  
(and dusty)

. . .


	2. 1/9/15: i wish the rain would rain

rain's supposed to be cleansing  
kisses in the rain  
funerals in the rain  
reunions in the rain  
contemplation in the rain  
except there's a drought, baby  
and i'm stuck on I-89 going south  
and I'm not moving


	3. 1/22/15: we are the tales of woe on beer bottle tags

jaded eyes like painted lips  
we fell in love to   
the words hanging by our teeth,  
as we danced across the floor  
like the shadows weren't growing  
behind us.

and when the clock struck twelve  
we shattered like diamonds   
in the dust, we fell--  
the glass slipper that was never found;  
the princess that got away;  
the carriage that got hit;  
the fairy tale that never ended,  
and turned into a nightmare

(let's dance alone together,'  
can you hear my heartbeat yet?)


	4. 2/22/15: i'm so salty

sometimes i forget you're gone  
it's not like a phantom limb kind of thing  
i stopped turning to you  
when you stopped looking at me  
but sometimes  
i have to remind myself  
that you are gone  
(i think sometimes  
i have to remind myself  
you were ever here in the first place)  
you're just a ghost that  
has bound itself to my being,  
quintessential,  
because i can't be me  
without remembering you

\-- or when you still love the salt in your wounds because it made you stronger


	5. 6/22/15: set fire to my poems

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the 22nd seems to be an auspicious day

my life isn't a poem  
it's not woven in  
between words   
it's not anyone's  
flesh and ink  
it's not spilled  
blood and tears  
it's simply  
breathing in  
and out  
and feeling my  
blood run  
because that's what  
i learned  
is all that matters

(i used to think  
my poems were pretty  
to make up for  
the ugly in my life  
but  
i stopped writing glitter  
into my blood  
and started bending steel  
around myself  
with a fire that'd  
make my words melt)


	6. 6/27/15: my muse is alive and it leaves me breathless

there are things in life   
that captivate me-- the way   
that words seem to wrap around  
my veins, that way the  
memories in my head twist,  
bent until they're an  
illusion, something once breathed.  
the way that music   
croons into my mouth   
makes me believe that maybe  
i have a soul and it's music,  
it's books, it's memories  
that coax worlds to life   
in my mind and bring galaxies  
to their knees and i never  
feel so alive than when  
i feel all the possibilities  
like lightning brewing   
underneath my fingertips

\--my muse is alive


	7. 7/13/15: IMPORTANT-- my monologue for two

what am i feeling?  
what am i thinking?  
i feel like i'm suffocating  
there's hand on my throat  
pushing the anger back down-- violently

submission doesn't feel like i've been beaten black and blue  
it feels like i'm freezing to death  
and submission is every gasping breath  
in  
out  
in  
out  
(the exhale is where i kill myself-- my rage)

"Why don't you talk to me?"  
i can't talk about what i feel  
because you deny _me_  
my feelings, my opinions, my agency  
when you say  
"It's just a phase"  
"I have to answer for your actions"  
"Don't push it"  
"Stop your dramatics"

I'm sorry if I'm able to articulate my pain  
more elaborately than  
"It's like someone is tearing my heart open"  
"I feel like there's an elephant on my chest"  
"When I hear that, it feels like I'm being stabbed"

I'm sorry if I can properly map out how I went from  
point a to point b  
from happy-10-year-old to  
wants-to-shove-pills-down-her-throat-one-by-one-until-something-inside-of-her-screams-16-year-old

i'm sorry if you can't understand that my pain  
is not an abstract turmoil in a dark, black hole in the general vicinity of my heart  
my pain is something that can be navigated with a red thread  
from the beginning to the end and i can tell you  
when and where i started feeling like my head was on fire  
and when and where that red thread ends around my neck like a noose

 

i'm sorry if you cannot understand the reality of what i feel

 

i tried to tell you softly  
how i feel with clinical precision, with logical analysis  
open to debate on how to find a solution  
"Stop being dramatic"

I tried to tell you silently  
how i feel with a tempest of silence and defensive sarcasm  
tried to let you read in between my breaths  
"Stop being dramatic"

If i yell will you hear me?  
"Stop being so dramatic"

IF I TALK LOUDER CAN YOU UNDERSTAND ME  
"Stop being so dramatic"

_IF I SCREAM HOW I FEEL, IF I USE YOUR LANGUAGE WILL YOU UNDERSTAND THAT THERE IS VIOLENCE IN MY HEAD_  
I AM A DIALOGUE WITH ONE PERSON SCREAMING  
I AM THE UNFORGIVING COLD OF WINTER TO MY OWN SUMMER  
THERE IS VIOLENCE IN MY HEAD  
THIS IS NOT A PHASE, I REPEAT, THIS IS NOT A PHASE  
THIS IS A LIFESTYLE THAT IS BURYING ME ALIVE  
I'M TRYING TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR MY OWN LIFE  
AND I SLAY MY OWN DEMONS I AM MY OWN SAVIOR  
BUT YOU TREAT ME LIKE THE PRINCESS LOCKED IN THE TOWER AND THE WALLS ARE SQUEEZING MY HEAD  
YOUR DENIAL IS YOUR HANDS ON MY BRAIN SQUEEZING IT UNTIL THEY ARE DRIPPING BRAIN MATTER  
I AM NOT WRONG. MY FEELINGS ARE NOT WRONG. THEY ARE REAL. THEY ARE DEADLY. LISTEN TO ME. 

If I talk louder, will you hear me?  
"Stop being so dramatic"

No.  
You won't.

So I stopped screaming, I stopped speaking, I just kept breathing.  
in  
out  
in  
out

("Is there something wrong with you?"  
You grind out like it's a hackled lion ready to tear me apart for daring to sleep in  
what my answer really is  
"no i'm not. i sleep because it's the only time it's silent.)


	8. 7/27/15: i am not a slip of a haunted soul; i bleed

who is my soul?

a sigh, a cold ghost  
across warm ears  
a tired gasp sparked with embers--

a slow, soft, searing  
wail  
an angry wail  
lost to white nois--

a curved lip,  
blood red and manic  
and blowing curses in wind  
and whipsering sweet nothings  
the kind that could kill,  
could calm a storm  
could magic--

a fire body:  
fire hands, fire feet  
burning fingertips   
(destruction in their wake)  
floating and prancing in fields  
of wild flowers  
(destruction in their wake)

a curved lip,  
blood red and manic  
and shivering breathing  
and mystifying wailing  
and terrifying laughter

a cold ghost, a searing wail

a half-breed of crazed and a vacant home  
waiting to be filled

(destruction in its wake,  
fire will not always destroy)


	9. 8/15/15: shewasfireanditkilledher

there was no poem to her words  
there was no music to her heartbeat  
there was no stardust to her bones  
there was no genius to her mind

(no matter how hard she tried)

instead  
her soul was fire  
and it yearned to blaze  
(to consume and spread and engulf  
everything in its warm wisps  
like wildfires do)

and she wanted every part of her  
to pour fire like gasoline  
and ignite her until she was radiant


	10. 8/5/15: just your friendly storm warning (there's a wildfire sitting in the kitchen sipping coffee instead of oxygen)

there was no poem to her words  
there was no music to her heartbeat  
there was no stardust to her bones  
there was no genius to her mind

(no matter how hard she tried)

instead  
her soul was fire  
and it yearned to blaze  
(to consume and spread and engulf  
everything in its warm wisps  
like wildfires do)

and she wanted every part of her  
to pour fire like gasoline  
and ignite her until she was radiant

AUDIT:

(the first verse is hateful, she hates herself  
she hates how dull she is, how clumsy she is  
how she can never reach that potential  
she /knows/ is inside of her.  
she hates herself she hates herselfshehatesherselfhateshateshatesgodwhythefuckisshealive)

(this is not a drill-- none of this is--  
and she wants so desperately to burn that she doesn't mind  
sending a couple people to ICU,  
with their lives being dripping into them intravenously,  
like hers was for all those years)

(and she's dangerous, she's untamed and she /knows/  
just like she /knows/ of her potential to prosper,  
she /knows/ she can and would destroy everyone   
because destruction could be her oxygen and   
well, justifiable homicide is a thing, right?)

(she hates herself because she is mediocre  
she hates herself because she can kill everyone  
she hates herself because she has to control herself  
she hates herself because she can't let anyone really see /her/  
she hates herself because she doesn't let anyone try to distinguish her flames  
she hates herself because she'd like to see anyone try  
she hates herself because she's itching to burn through everything  
she hates herself because she knows better  
she hates herself because even if she knows better she doesn't do better  
she hates herself because she's trying and it's never fast enough  
she hates herself because she knows she's going too slow and everyone else is in the fast lane  
she hates herself because she could care less about everyone else  
she hates herself because she's a little bit in love with herself  
she hates herself because she'll go through it alone and prove to everyone she is fire  
she hates herself because she doesn't want to be alone but she is fire and she doesn't know how to share oxygen)

(she /hates/ everything about herself and this is not a happy girl,  
this is not a happy poem, she wants you to understand that  
she is not okay and she wants you to feel the malice she feels towards herself  
because it is real and it is not a drill

but this is also a girl a little bit in love with herself  
and she'll raze you for taking her lightly  
(imagine a fire girl with teeth bared and danger eyes and anger and calculation)  
so she'll be okay in the end. she doesn't know how.  
she doesn't know if her fire will ever be free.  
she doesn't know if her fire will ever die.  
she doesn't know if she'll be living by her own standards or someone else's  
she doesn't know if she'll ever radiate like she's supposed to  
she does know that she will keep breathing because that's all she knows how to do  
and she will keep kindling the fire, keeping it alive, and she will maim anyone who tries to extinguish it.  
because she is fire and she is aware of it and she hates herself but she loves herself and she'll protect herself  
it's important you understand. do not help her. but understand her and let her be. let her ignite her own fire.  
it's important that she does it herself because she is fire and it is essential to her essence to burn /everything/)

(even the hatred of other, even the doubts and restrictions of others, even the pity and help of others)

(REMINDER: THIS IS NOT A DRILL AND THIS IS NOT A HAPPY GIRL.   
THIS IS NOT A POEM AND THIS IS NOT A BIOGRAPHY.  
THIS IS A PROMISE FROM A SAVAGE, FIRE GIRL.   
EVERYTHING IS HER CHOICE AND SHE CHOOSES TO BURN, TO KEEP HER FIRE INSIDE. PRAY SHE DOESN'T LET IT OUT.)


	11. 8/14/15: phantomlimbs

there's a universe between   
my shoulder blades, where   
gallant wings should be

sometimes i feel, i yearn  
for the air beneath my wings  
and i ache for the wind  
to tangle with my hair  
and for my body to   
dance with the breeze 

i arch for the air  
i reach for the skies  
but my feet melt onto the ground  
and my shoulders spark with   
the friction of the world  
against my spine

maybe i can't fly  
but holding the world  
lets me charge through life  
like a wildfire, and  
that's a whole different type  
of euphoria


	12. 8/14/15: my mothers favorite show was ghostbusters so i dressed up as a ghost and accidentally became one

my mother tells me  
i'm like a guest in this house  
but i feel more like a ghost  
the way i pass through these solid walls  
and look into empty mirrors  
and hallways so empty that the only things you hear  
are my footsteps and  
angry, sad words barely passing through gnawed teeth


	13. 8/15/15: i'd like to purchase three of vacation me please (i'm already down to my last two)

crappy hotel rooms catch  
crappy guests like flies,  
stuck to the walls like wanted posters.  
another swipe of mascara, another  
line of liner-- until it runs out  
and i trying to drink up  
every last drop like ambrosia.   
maybe it will make me look better.

i didn't get any sleep last night.   
something about hotel beds make them   
seem like coffins, soft and plush  
and suffocating.  
the dead don't need air and i've  
barely been breathing--  
keeping to the sides with a   
wax smile.  
the lies have been burned into my body.

i don't need a concierge to tell me  
where to find food.  
i've been faking it with the rest of them--  
i like to pretend i know where i'm going.

like a fly on a wall, the wall  
catches my smile when i leave  
and the receptionist doesn't smile back at me

(i was never really smiling)


	14. 8/23/15: you can't live with them, you can't live without them

are things really okay  
or have we learned how to hide  
have we learned that to survive  
we, lionesses, hide from   
each other, lions, like  
animals, hackles raised,  
sizing each other, trying to   
see what's underneath the fur  
without making a cut

it's a game we play  
where we descend upon each other  
like swords blazing and  
angry welts and broken bones  
and ravaged, broken bodies  
and anguished screams  
and it's bloody and it's gory  
and it's ruthless and it's awful  
and it's all in our heads  
it's all in our heads  
we don't say anything but  
we destroy each other's worlds

are things really okay  
because breathing isn't easy without you

(i can breathe, but i have to remind myself)

are things really okay   
we sit at the dinner table  
and all of the i'm sorry's and i love you's  
drop like flies, electrocuted  
as ash and dust  
whisps of what they used to be

nothing is the same  
nothing will ever be the same  
each time it's worse  
i don't know how to breathe without you  
i think i'm going to die soon


	15. 9/16/15: five things you want him to know (bellarke)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> BELLAMY BLAKE/ CLARKE GRIFFIN FROM THE 100. ALL CHARACTERS ARE NOT MINE.

i. you hands are the color of trust, the color of his eyes,  
the lines on your palm are trails of freckles  
and the grime underneath your nails feels like blood.

ii. your ears are ghosts, run, and  
you don't walk with the living anymore, run,  
you are the undead breathing, run runrunrun.

iii. before you fell, you floated falsely  
now you feel the ground beneath your feet  
and it's the only thing that doesn't hurt  
so you keep walking

iv. all roads lead back there  
but you leave bodies instead of footprints  
and your name is too big for this camp--  
your soul is too small; it slipped out  
from between your ribs and fell  
along the broken road

v. you write letters in dirt  
to bodies irradiated, burned, stabbed, breathing  
but the waves run them over  
you don't know how to swim

(vi. he learns to swim without you.)


	16. 10/3/15: vessle

it waits, like prophecy,  
churning into storms like lions' roars.  
i wait, like oracles,  
and let it burn through my body like electricity.

i am not poet.   
i am not pundit.  
i am not oracle or truthsayer.  
i am not fire or air or water.  
i am not earth. i am not girl--

\--it comes at night: slowly, quietly,  
spills out of me, bloody and boney.  
bites and tears skin and bed sheets,  
not one body left unscathed,  
it's rage hot, sadness bruising, regret consuming.

(some nights-- i write)


	17. 12/27/15: contextsubtext

what if it's all a lie?  
i told my mother i loved her today; i lied today and  
i held her hand and smiled today; she lied to me today and  
Little Girl cut off her hair today; He lied to his mother today and   
my brother cut his mother open today; he lied to himself today and   
the soldier shook the president's hand and smiled today; he lied to the camera today and   
the world told me i wasn't good enough today; everybody lies. 

(they told me the world spun around the sun.   
the sky is black. everything is grey.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2016 to come once I write something.

**Author's Note:**

> all poems and media are mine. all rights reserved. please ask before using.


End file.
